Why join the course?

Music is movement. A bold statement, but one that we will explore together in this free online course.

Together we will study music through different types of body movement. This includes everything from the sound-producing keyboard actions of a pianist to the energetic dance moves in a club.

You will learn about the theoretical foundations for what we call embodied music cognition and why body movement is crucial for how we experience the emotional moods in music. We will also explore different research methods used at universities and conservatories. These include advanced motion capture systems and sound analysis methods.

You will be guided by a group of music researchers from the University of Oslo, with musical examples from four professional musicians. The course is rich in high-quality text, images, video, audio and interactive elements.

Join us to learn more about terms such as entrainment and musical metaphors, and why it is difficult to sit still when you experience a good groove.

1:12Skip to 1 minute and 12 secondsHi, my name is Alexander Jensenius. My main research interest is to understand more about music and movement, and also to develop technologies for creating music through movement. We all know that people move to music, but why is this so? As music researchers, we're interested in understanding more about the theoretical foundations for such movements, and we use different types of methods for studying movements. But what are these? That's what we're going to teach you in this course. Welcome to Music Moves.

What topics will you&nbspcover?

A historical overview

Perception and cognition of music

Functional action-sound categories

Multimodality

Pulse and Entrainment

Groove

Gestures and Coarticulation

Bodily Metaphors

Motion Capture

Video Analysis

Bio Sensors

When would you like to&nbspstart?

21 January 2019

What will you&nbspachieve?

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

Reflect on the importance of the human body in the experience of music

Classify different types of music-related body movements

Collect information about music-related body movements

Describe different types of research methods used to study music-related body movements

Explain why groove-based music entrains the body

Who is the course&nbspfor?

This course is open to everyone. No technical knowledge of music or dance is required.